Tag: m.l. swift

In my quests for finding employment, I applied to a writing network and was accepted. My first assignment is due on Friday. So, hyped about this. In addition, I have a guest post to complete by Friday and two chapters of edits due on Monday.

And, to top it all off, I sign up for a Short Story Contest, which is due on Friday. This is where I need your help. The contest sets heats and everyone in my heat for this first round has to write in the same genre and use the same character. I thought is would be a great challenge until I saw the genre. I have to write a fantasy story. I don’t have anything against fantasy, I just don’t read it and don’t know much about the genre. It’s not the same as science fiction, right?

Huge favor – share with me your favorite Fantasy writers? I need a point of reference.

Do you have Ten Minutes?

Harry Widdifield, formerly know as Sevestian Winters (check out his guest post on my blog a couple of months ago, brilliant) has penned a new blog and a new journey in life as the Teller of Ten Minute Tales. His goal is to write a short story a day. He currently has two volumes for sale. I suggest you pick them up. Great stuff and you can read a story in 10 minutes. Who doesn’t have 10 minutes.

You are Uncomaparable by MarcyKate Connolly – This goes along with my favorite quote from Bird by Bird, “Jealousy is the business of comparing my insides to other people’s outsides.” It’s not worth it, so stop doing it.

What Came First: The Scene or The Word? by Mike Reverb – I struggle with this as well. I see the scene in my head like a movie, but can’t seem to capture the same visuals and drama when I put it down on paper.

Welcome to the first discussion post of the ProgressiveBook Club, hosted by M.L. Swift. This month’s selection, Bird by Bird written by Anne Lamott.I really enjoyed the book. It was funny and entertaining. I forgot it was supposed to be educational.

What I took away from this book was a deeper understanding of why I love to write. It reminded me, although being a writer can be frustrating and isolating and at times boring, there is nothing like the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual feeling you get from writing.

Here are the top 10 lessons I learned from Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott:

Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life. – It gave me a life.

Do it every day for a while. – I struggle with this the most.

The actual act of writing turns out to be the best part. – If I could remember how it feels all the time, I would no longer have a problem with #2.

When my writer friends are working, they feel better and more alive than they do at any other time. – Again, that physical, emotional, mental & spiritual things I talked about before.

You get your confidence and intuition back by trusting yourself, by being militantly on your own side. – Writing taught me who I am and who I am, is ok.

Write an incredibly shitty, self-indulgent, whinny, mewling first draft. Then take out as many of the excesses as you can. – Turning off and the edit button is hard and even harder to turn it back on.

Characters: it takes time for you to know them, you need to find out as much as possible about the interior life of the people you are working with, you are going to hate some of your characters, you are probably going to have to let bad things happen to some of the characters you love, plot grows out of character, the better you know them the more you’ll see things from their point of view, you have to get things quiet in your head so you can hear them and let them guide your story. – My favorite section of the book. I love the purposeful task of creating a good character.

The development of relationships creates plot. – You create some much for the reader if you focus on the relationships in your WIP.

Dialogue: listening, observing, storing things away, making your isolation pay off, each one must sound different, gives us the sense that we are eavesdropping, is the way to nail character. – Eavesdropping is the key.

Jealousy is the business of comparing my insides to other people’s outsides. – I put this one on my inspiration board. It is so true. Not a fair comparison, so stop doing it.